Friday, July 6, 2012

no electricity?

did you hear that 1.3 million people in the DC area were without power this past week?
we were in there somewhere.

Friday night date night went like this:
eat the Chinese food.
watch the coolest Indie flick from Netflix 
(The Lake Effect...seriously, go watch it!)
right when it's getting really really good, 70mph winds sweep through and completely knock out electricity.
DANG!
(if you watch the movie, do not tell me how it ends, we still haven't had a chance to finish it!!!)

go to bed.
wake up and head out to try and find coffee.
Jake tried,
I tried.
NO ONE had power.
No. one.
no coffee.

E.MER.GEN.CY.
;-)

Actually, we'll just call it an excuse.
the forecast was for several days of over 100 degree weather and the projected time for getting electricity back was in the vicinity of 2-3 days.

which they always say and it's always like 12 hrs.
(well, always except this time!)

either way, we packed up the car and headed west just hoping they had a hotel room in a cute little town called
Winchester, VA

we drove through it two years ago when we moved here and have always wanted to go back.

A.DOR.ABLE!

the fifth hotel I called had power and had just had a cancellation so they had exactly ONE room left.
I didn't even ask what kind of room, I just said, "WE'LL TAKE IT!"

It ended up being perfect.
It had air conditioning, a pool, laundry service and free breakfast.
bam!

We headed to Winchester just knowing it was cute but not much else.
We had no internet, no 3G and no phone when we left the house.

What a gold mine we landed upon!
LOVE LOVE LOVE that little town.

 it had a 'mini' 16th St. Mall (Denver) a.k.a. Pedestrian Walking Mall - meaning there is no street between the stores, just a huge sidewalk/cobblestone area - 
 and for a tiny town out the sticks of VA, there were some really really trendy restaurants, bookstores, consignment shops, art stores, ETC!
 when we found A/C we took full advantage of it:
 and it's Virginia, which means there was BOUND to be some early American history
may we present to you a cannon USED by Col. George Washington?
right outside his little office from when he was a surveyor for Brittan:
yes indeed!
 they even had four five strands of his ACTUAL hair.
we have now seen his ACTUAL fake teeth and his ACTUAL hair.
I'm afraid to see what we'll find next....

Hi George!
 (that's the 'office' behind the ivy'd tree - TINY!)

but the JackPOT of all JACKPOTS was the rockin' Children's Museum that was smack on the pedestrian mall!!!
HELLO!?
A/C? Children's Museum?
YES PLEASE!

We killed some perfectly good hours in this here pad:

Dr. Lydia
(pretty sure she spent the entire three hours in this ONE room!)

 Wigwam and crutches?
sure!

I left Jake in charge for a few minutes while I went to explore the not-kid-friendly-shops and when I got back, I found him in this chair, ASLEEP!
good news though.
the kids were all alive so he did good.


we got home and still had no power.
it was a mess.

it's all over now though.
we were without power for 72 hrs but many many people in this area still won't have power until tomorrow.

So,
Emergency or Excuse - Tomato or Tomatoe.

Dear Winchester,
We WILL be back.
You were too cute!

1 comment:

Courtney said...

you panter's sure know how to make lemonade out of lemons! and that children's museum looks great! winchester isn't that far from me!